About the Author

Galen Clark is famous for his discovery of the Mariposa Grove of Giant
Sequoia trees and for his role as Guardian of Yosemite National Park
for several years.
Mr. Clark didn’t seek to enrich himself from Yosemite Valley or the
Sequoia Trees.
He did try to make a living though.
He ran a modest hotel and guide service, but was a poor business man
who was constantly in debt.
“Clark’s Station” in Wawona, for example,
had several more employees than required for the number of guests
and its short season.
Toward the end of his life Mr. Clark was desperately poor.
He wasn’t a great book writer, but due to his popularity and need to
make a living, wrote three books on Yosemite.
The other two are
Indians of the Yosemite
(1904)
and
The Yosemite Valley (1910).
Galen Clark’s book on the Sequoia trees is simple, factual, and direct.
Unfortunately, he left out the most important part—his personal
role in the discovery, popularization, and protection of the
Mariposa Grove of Big Trees as hotel keeper, guide, and
Guardian of Yosemite and Mariposa Grove.
One only wishes he would have included
accounts he gave or wrote in his letters or other books.

About the Photographer

This book’s most valuable asset is its photographs.
Most of the photographs were taken by his friend George Fiske,
a Yosemite Photographer.
George Fiske was born 1835 in Amherst, New Hampshire and moved west with his brother
to San Francisco. He apprenticed with Charles L. Weed
and worked with
Carleton E. Watkins,
both early Yosemite photographers.
Fiske and his wife moved to Yosemite in 1879 and lived there until
he committed suicide in 1918.
Fiske was living alone when he shot himself and he often told
his neighbors he was “tired of living.”
Most of his negatives were destroyed when his house burned in 1904.
After his death, his remaining negatives were acquired by the
Yosemite Park Company and stored
neglected in a sawmill attic, which burned in 1943.
Ansel Adams suggested they be stored safely in the Yosemite Museum
fireproof basement, but his suggestion was ignored.
“If that hadn’t happened,” says Adams,
“Fiske could have been revealed today, I firmly believe, as a top photographer,
a top interpretive photographer.
I really can’t get excited at
[Carleton] Watkins
and
[Eadweard] Muybridge—I do get excited at Fiske.
I think he had the better eye.”
(Hickman & Pitts, George Fiske, Yosemite Photographer (1980)).